News and commentary on Religion, especially Southern religion.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

A story about a security company

This is a story about a security company, although it focuses on the assertion that "More than 1,200 crimes were committed against Christian churches and ministries in 2009." And on apparently related statistics.

Nothing wrong with that, although the readers would have been better served if the story had detailed the underlying sources used to develop the statistics cited (the proprietary report upon which the story is based apparently is no longer available online). And it would have been helpful if the story had included illuminating comments from academics who have appropriate expertise in the analysis of such statistics. Just so the readers could make well-reasoned judgments about the validity of the numbers.

Absent that kind of balancing and enlightening detail it isn't journalism. It's a form of advertising for the source of the material.

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